After dinner we have a cleanup time before evening snack/dessert. I tell the little ones I need help getting the playroom things put away and the bigger ones are motivated by food and the idea that anything left out may get put somewhere known only to me in the night and who knows when I’ll release it again. Then we sit for a bit and wind down the day before heading to bed.

Anonymous wrote:Start small "Larlo, toss your napkin in the trash and bring your dinner plate to the sink. Then you can go play".

I let my kids watch tv while I cook dinner and any cleaning up needs to be done before tv! I’m not big on policing them constantly to clean up as they go along so I prefer a designated clean up time (and this is extremely motivating).

On occasion, I have told the kids that anything I still see on the floor at 8 pm is going to go into this giant trash bag and I will donate it to kids who are able to take care of their things. That’s the nuclear option though and won’t work on a 2 year old.

I only had to actually give their things away once!